The 1st. Johnny Doran Weekend. I think this clipping is out of the Wicklow People. If you know otherwise please let me know.

Jimmy O'Brien-Moran has found something to fill that extra hole......... in his stock. It's an A drone he ventured to make himself! It works a treat according to the man himself. Have a look at the photo to see the finer details.

The Irish £50 punt note, front and rear view with an uilleann piper piping away (never was piping so sad never was piping so gay). I'm sure the afore mentioned piper would have appreciated one of these!

Found a couple of schnapps of the Seattle 2000 Tionól that I forgot about in the camera. #1 The inevitable Sam and his pint photo ;)

Gay McKeon was my teacher this year. He had a nice sized class with eight people in attendance each day. NPU are working on keeping the class size down to about eight, so that students will get as much out of the classes in the time allowed.

Here is a close up shot of Gay's new Cillian O'Briain set. It is made from a combination of ebony and boxwood. The tenor and baritone regulators being of boxwood and also the mounts and sections of the drones.

Jimmy again, playing his Robert Reid D set with Boyle and O'Connor, Delaware, USA chanter. He was using his new little A drone too which filled out the sets harmonic range amazingly.

This is the Maurice Coyne set in B that was donated to NPU by Tom Busby of New York. Geoff Wooff was given the task of bringing this beautiful set back from the grave and what a fine job he did!
This set is one of Coyne's finest examples still playing today. It was built around 1840 and had a contra bass regulator that you can see laying beside the set. An E regulator was also included on the set but this may have been a later addition.Geoff had to build several new mounts for the set and the baritone drone is entirely of Wooff manufacture. A small extender was built of ebony for the bottom of the bass regulator to compensate for the contra bass not being used at this time. The whiter mounts you see, including the chanter bottom, Geoff made from mammoth ivory and aged, to match the sets patina, in tea. It's a wonderful specimen and great to see it playing again and so well.

The Coyne set from another angle.

Detail of the bass regulator cap mount. This is a piece of mammoth ivory that Geoff aged and turned to match the set. Notice the natural grain of the ivory against the combed turning. Quite spectacular.

The proud new 'guardian' of the Coyne set. Nollaig McCarthaigh has been given the honour of taking care of the set. He will have to maintain it to a suitable standard for review by a panel every few years. One of the stipulations by the panel is that the set must be played by whomever is it's current guardian.

Check out Thomas Johnsons site for more on the week and some of the sets there.

Geoff Wooff giving my set a go in Hillary's Pub on the Friday night.

Saoirce Ni Mhuiré playing my set in Hillary's. She has a set by Geoff also. I believe it's a narrow bore D half set.

I think this is a great photo. It captures a lot of what the week is all about.....listening. Mikie Smyth playing my B set in Hillary's once again with Gabi Wooff, Tom Clarke and Al Purcell listening in.

Iain Cameron sent me these photos of this lovely Harrington set. He told me "This set was one my dad copied, it was in a museum but was stolen during his work, he did however get a full set of measurements which I still have, I think he made two copies one in boxwood and one in ebony".

Iain Cameron sent this one also of Dan O'Dowd's Egan set. He says, "this was taken at Bettystown and we actually had a go at playing them but my dad couldn't get it together as they were so easy and Dan just sat and laughed at him".

This is a Maurice Coyne set made about 180 years ago, also photographed at a Bettystown tionól and sent to me by Iain Cameron.

An nice looking set, possibly a Kennedy or a Crowley, suggestions considered. Photographed at a Bettystown tionól by Iain Cameron.

Dan O'Dowd and friends. If you recognise the faces in this photo please pass on the names so I can identify them, thanks. Photographed at a Bettystown tionól and sent to me by Iain Cameron.

Here is a nice photo of Al Purcell that I forgot I had. I took this in his daughter Aline's house in Los Angeles in 1998.

Kevin Rietmann sent me the next nine photos of pipemaker Brad Angus and a couple of examples of his work, from the home of mental senses of humour and The Dandy Warhols, Portland, Oregon. This one depicts the maker in his familiar surroundings.

Brad playing an applewood copy of Mark Walstroms Wooff B set.

Brad playing his D set in the Blue Room.

Playing into the light! Some lamp eh! ....more to come on that....

Brads first full set. It was decided that a lamp was a better use for this set ;)

Robert Gardiner sent me the next nine photos from his trips to Scoil Acla in 2000 and the Chris Langan Weekend in Toronto 2001. This first one is of the man that keeps the piping at Scoil Acla flowing, Ciarán Ó Máille